


atlas in my hands

by lisettedelapin



Category: Free!
Genre: Episode 11, HARURINRALIA, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisettedelapin/pseuds/lisettedelapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin will not dwell on that thought. After all, it is times like this when he is able to hold on to the faith that Haruka cannot manage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	atlas in my hands

**Author's Note:**

> okay, i realise that ep12 just came out but i've been sitting on this harurinralia fic since like...saturday so i thought i'd finish it and upload before i watched the episode hhhhh hopefully all of the sydney specific stuff is accurate because i'm working purely from tripadvisor here oops
> 
> title from ['atlas hands' by benjamin francis leftwich](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyue2N1XZ0M)!

It occurs to Rin when they are boarding the plane that Haruka has probably never flown before. His eyes are dull, trained on his own shuffling feet and it’s with no hesitation that Rin shoves him towards the window seat; waving a dismissive hand when he tells Rin that, according to their tickets, they’ve just switched spots. Rin feels him stare for a few seconds, until the lack of response gets to him and with a sigh, he settles in his seat, staring blankly at the headrest in front of him.

Slowly, people fill the seats around them; an exasperated mother tries to quiet her crying child as the immaculate airhostesses direct winning smiles towards the emergency exits. They wait through it – Rin fiddling with inflight magazines as Haruka looks ahead like he could be anywhere at all.

Or as if he feels like he’s nowhere.

Rin will not dwell on that thought. After all, it is times like this when he is able to hold on to the faith that Haruka cannot manage.

His heart speeds when the plane begins to move. It makes him feel like he weighs nothing, the grinding of the wheels echoing so easily under his skin. Moments later and the sensation of Rin’s stomach plunging as the plane lifts fearless and soft off the ground is familiar enough that he might’ve flown only yesterday.

He wants to ask Haruka if he feels it too but the words die when Rin sees him turned towards the window, his head bowed as he touches his fingers to the pane. By some inevitable impulse, Rin too leans over for a peek of Japan, growing smaller yet stretching so much wider under them. The lights diminish, shifting until they are mottled pinpricks of colour and quietly, Rin wonders what exactly Haruka is seeing.

When there is nothing but thick night out the window and Haruka turns back, Rin does not find absence in his gaze. It’s a vice around his heart but he feels himself breathe when instead, he recognises a storm.

Wreckage will always be infinitely less frightening to him than empty space.

~

When they set foot outside Sydney airport, dawn is tentatively warming the sky soft shades of pink. The air is cold but it carries a sleepy sort of heaviness to it. It fogs Rin’s brain in a way that makes his thoughts and movements sluggish. As he flags a taxi and hauls his luggage into the boot, he feels as if the world is buzzing around him. Haruka is a few steps behind, dazed and with a white-knuckled grip on his suitcase.

“Oi!”

Haruka looks up at the sound, focusing slowly on Rin as if he is but muffled noise, standing somewhere intangible in Haruka’s periphery.

“Your luggage,” Rin says, jerking his head towards the taxi. He can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when finally, Haruka nods, taking the few strides over and hauling his suitcase to rest atop Rin’s.

 ~

They both end up sleeping in the taxi. It’s difficult to remember who fell first, but when the driver clears his throat to wake them, Haruka’s hair is tickling Rin’s neck and Rin finds that his ear hurts from being pressed to the top of Haruka’s head.

It’s not uncomfortable.

But Rin’s heart aches when he sees the bags under Haruka’s eyes. Under different circumstances, he thinks maybe he’d have tried his chances laying a kiss to that sunken skin.

~

The hotel room is modest; two beds that Rin will _not_ push together however much he’d like to, a small T.V and a bare desk sat by the double doors leading to the balcony.

The balcony, or rather the view from the balcony, is a good one. Discreetly, Rin puts his hands together in thanks when he drags Haruka out to watch the sun rise over Sydney, its rays spilling to touch the central business district’s clustered rooftops.

Haruka still does not speak, but he doesn’t leave either and Rin thinks that’s certainly a start.

~ 

They wake at noon, brush their teeth side by side and change their clothes with their backs to one another. Rin insists that Haruka wears an extra shirt. And then a jumper and a jacket and a coat and a scarf until finally, Haruka narrows his eyes and strips back down to his shirt and pants.

“It’s winter here, y’know?” Rin says.

Haruka folds each extra layer before proceeding to place the neat pile very firmly in front of Rin.

“I’ll survive.”

Rin pouts but he doesn’t press the matter. He’ll shove the clothes in his bag just in case anyway.

~

It ends up a solid 25 degrees; Rin thinks he’s certainly vulnerable to suffering heat stroke with how cooped up he is in his fortress of warm clothes. 

Haruka raises an eyebrow, as if to say _I told you so_ and Rin has to hide his grin when he elbows Haruka's side in retaliation.

~ 

With the thought that Bondi will be too crowded, Rin takes Haruka to Manly beach.

And if anything, he has always seen Haruka as a ticking mind full of half-considered observations; thoughts wound softly around time, place, person, self. There is enough space to know his own voice well, to hold faith in it even when his emotions do not make sense to himself.

But now he watches Haruka curl in on himself as he regards the ocean like it might wound rather than soothe. He looks to it as one might consider a stranger that they wish to know but cannot reach for. Rin tries not to bend to the way that image hits him raw and deep in his gut. 

~ 

“Your voice is louder here,” Haruka mutters, as Rin pushes a carton of hot chips into his hands.

“Huh?”

Haruka shakes his head. “You speak louder than you do in Iwatobi.”

Rin smiles easily as he leads Haruka outside to sit on a bench outside the café. There’s a fountain opposite to them, and the water shimmers as it catches the light. Rin makes a mental note to cast a spare coin into it later.

“That makes sense,” he says.

“What does?” Haruka’s voice is still a hint raspy from going so long without use.

“Speaking louder.” Rin turns to direct his words straight at Haruka now. “When I first came here, Sydney was huge and terrifying and too fast…I guess I had to make myself bigger to keep up.”

“You?”

Rin grins, nodding. “Tiny mackerel.” But his teeth are sharp as ever and the way he carries himself is steadfast, almost haughtily self-assured.

Haruka huffs out a sound that lies somewhere between amused and annoyed.

Rin takes a moment before he speaks again. “The world isn’t supposed to scare you, though. It certainly isn’t trying to. But I kind of feel more comfortable coming back here than I ever did before.” He stretches now, plants a twenty-cent coin in the palm of Haruka’s hand and gestures towards the fountain.

  
~

He notices afterwards how, tentatively, Haruka stops trailing three steps behind him. 

~

At dusk, they crowd into the pedestrian walkway of the Sydney Harbour bridge. Rin watches as Haruka tries to peer beyond the mesh fences.

“Can we see more?” he asks. His mouth remains slightly parted even once the question has left him and Rin isn’t entirely sure where he wants to look; knows only that his cheeks feel considerably hotter.

Haruka turns once more towards the view, leans towards it now as a jogger whips past them.

Rin’s chest is seizing with something warm and sweeping. It’s felt so effortlessly towards Haruka that it almost catches him off guard.

“Of course,” he says.

~

Rin covers the $13 fees to stand ninety meters off the ground on Pylon lookout. Haruka is impatient now, keeping ahead of Rin as he tries to make it to the top as fast as possible. When they get there, Rin cannot tell if the air is thinner because of how high up they are, or because of the way the wind has just been knocked right out of him.

From here, Sydney might as well belong to them. The sun has almost finished setting, leaving streaks of burnt orange and warm red in its wake. Rin traces gold light down the water of the Darling Harbour as a ferry chugs across its distance. City lights shyly blink upwards and the Opera House sits sleek and proud as it glows in the fading sun.

And then there is Haruka, caught between trying to look at all sides of the view at once. His eyes are wide as his fingers tremble at the railing and Rin finds himself almost upset that he will never find a word to describe how he could sink in all that Haruka is one thousand times over and still uncover new depths.

A breeze whispers past their hair; sharp as Sydney’s metal and concrete but rounded by something distinctly fresh, like clean linen and salt. _Oceanic,_ Rin thinks _._ He wonders if the sudden rush of affection he feels for it has more to do with nostalgia or with the way Haruka is swallowing it willingly down into his own lungs.

Rin reaches for Haruka’s hand, allows himself to smile at the giddy fluttering of his stomach.

“It’s beautiful, huh?”

Haruka nods, adjusts their fingers in a way that is more comfortable.

“It’s yours,” Rin starts but now his throat is oddly tight and he can feel his eyes burning. He has to swallow before he continues. “If you’ll allow it, this entire world is yours.”

Haruka squeezes Rin’s hand, but he doesn’t look away, will not even blink; as if he is afraid the skyline will lose its way behind his lids.

“It won’t ever ask for anything back, so you don’t have to be so frightened….but if you —,” Rin takes a moment to sequence his words, “if you’re always looking, the world will open itself to you.” He runs his thumb over Haruka’s, hopes to God that Haruka won’t pull away.

Haruka draws his breath in like he’s reaching for his life in the air. And as he exhales, he turns towards Rin. He won’t move closer, but he keeps their hands held firmly together.

“I’m glad I came here,” he says, unguarded and direct and with ninety meters worth of emotion condensed in his voice.

It’s not a resolution but however much of a romantic Rin is; he wasn’t really expecting one in the traditional sense. Besides, he’s just found himself struck by how impossibly blue Haruka’s eyes are, how he brims with untapped force under his surface. _Oceanic,_ Rin thinks again. And he knows that Haruka is a tide that could pull him anywhere at all. That is, if he permits, and if occasionally, he will allow Rin to be the sand that shields him from spilling.

**Author's Note:**

> oKAY NOW IM GONNA GO WATCH THAT EPISODE


End file.
